A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,115
Mama said. “He was a terror on the cricket pitch.” She watched Robbie the way a parent watched a much younger child, one who could be carried off next week by a lung fever.
“He’s not as sound as he thinks he is, Mama, or not the way he thinks he is. He could have drowned, walking by the river’s edge, and then he was ill, and if it hadn’t been for her ladyship—”
The door at the far end of the garden opened. Nathaniel expected to see Treegum, Elf, or a stray maid come through, taking a shortcut perhaps. The damned door was supposed to be kept locked during Mama’s visit, but like many orders Nathaniel gave of late, that one had apparently been ignored.
Cousin Sarah bustled into the garden, a basket over her arm adding to her deceptively harmless appearance. She kept coming as Nathaniel rose and walked toward her, her every step deepening his dread.
She waved to Nathaniel as she approached Robbie, and Nathaniel saw the moment when she realized that the fellow without his hat was not an under-gardener or groundsman.
“Oh, dear,” Mama muttered at Nathaniel’s elbow. “I told her the dower house wanted flowers. I never thought she’d recall my little hobby.”
Cousin Sarah dropped her basket, threw her arms around Robbie, and commenced to blubber and howl loudly enough to be heard as far away as London itself.
“I’m sorry,” Jane said, aiming her apology at Althea. “Perhaps I can come down later, once the guests are through the receiving line.”
Quinn scowled ferociously. “The scent of beeswax aggravates the condition, as I recall.”
“What condition?” Althea asked, for nothing in this exchange made sense to her. Jane’s belly was troubling her and her face was pale. Quinn looked ready to do violence to somebody, perhaps himself.
“You said you were past this part,” he snapped. “You told me the worst of it was behind you.”
“Is Jane ill?” Althea asked.
“No,” Jane said, just as Quinn growled out, “Yes.”
Jane smiled, while Quinn scrubbed a hand over his face. “The duchess and I are in anticipation of an interesting event. We have no son, which bothers me not at all when I have three daughters to love and spoil, as well as a brother and a cousin upon whom the dukedom can inflict itself. My wife nonetheless uses the lack of an heir to regularly and thoroughly—”
“Quinn.” Jane’s rebuke was gentle and amused. “Althea has no interest in those details.”
Althea found those details fascinating. “Your digestion bothers you because you are expecting?”
“It shouldn’t,” Jane replied, aiming a puzzled glance at her stomach. “The midwives all claim that the belly settles down after the first few months. That was true with Bitty.”
Quinn took the place beside Jane on the sofa and laced his fingers with hers. “And Bitty’s sisters have refused to heed the midwife’s guidance. Jane suffers for months with these babies. Contrary Wentworths, the lot of them.”
Quinn suffered with these babies, a fascinating revelation. “What’s to be done?” Althea asked. “Peppermint tea? Ginger and lemon? Lemon drops?”
“Lemon and ginger tea,” Jane said, “and dry toast.”
Quinn kissed Jane’s knuckles, then rose and stalked toward the door, apparently intent on plundering the kitchen in person.
“Quinn, you cannot go belowstairs,” Althea said. “The staff is in a near panic, the guests will start arriving in less than two hours, and Monsieur will have an apoplexy if you appear in his kitchen now.”
“If my duchess is in want of damned lemon tea—”
“She’s right,” Jane said, rubbing a hand across her middle. “Use the bell pull, Quinn, but we have a larger problem to solve. If I am suffering a bout of dyspepsia, who will hostess this ball?”
For an instant, Althea considered that Jane’s bout of dyspepsia might be manufactured, but the duchess’s pallor and the real worry in Quinn’s eyes argued for genuine bad luck.
“I will,” Althea said. “I was originally planning to anyway.”
Quinn yanked the bell pull so hard it came off in his hand. “That was before you aroused the ire of the local matchmakers.”
“And if I am also suffering a bout of dyspepsia,” Althea said, taking the bell pull from him, “what conclusion do you suppose Lady Phoebe will draw?” Althea dragged the chair from behind the escritoire to the place beside the hearth and used Quinn’s shoulder to balance on as she climbed onto the chair. “She will imply that what she caught me doing was far more than kissing Rothhaven.”
Althea retied the bell pull to the wire that dangled from the